Reminder: Each Wednesday, SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe answers your questions about the court in a section called Ask Amy. Send your queries to scotusblog@thedispatch.com.
At the Court
On Monday, the court added a new case on the First Step Act to its oral argument docket for the 2026-27 term, sent a death-row inmate’s case back to the lower courts for additional proceedings, and turned down a request from Florida to file an original action against California challenging the constitutionality of a California corporate tax rule. For more on Monday’s order list, see the On Site section below.
Alabama has asked the court on its interim docket to allow it to use a congressional map in this year’s elections that was struck by a lower court as racially discriminatory. On Monday, the plaintiffs challenging the map filed their responses to that request. Hours later, Alabama replied to their filings, so the justices could act at any time.
Also on Monday, the court denied Andrew Lukehart’s request for a stay of execution. Lukehart is scheduled to be executed today in Florida.
The court has indicated that it may announce opinions on Thursday at 10 a.m. EDT. We will be live blogging that morning beginning at 9:30 a.m.
After the possible announcement of opinions on Thursday, the justices will meet in a private conference to discuss cases and vote on petitions for review. Orders from that conference are expected on Monday, June 8, at 9:30 a.m. EDT.
Morning Reads
Once-confidential documents reveal Scalia’s role in Supreme Court taking up famous Dick Cheney case
Joan Biskupic, CNN (paywalled)
In a story based on once-confidential documents belonging to the late Justice John Paul Stevens that are now public at the Library of Congress, CNN explored Justice Antonin Scalia’s role in the court’s 2003 decision to hear “a case involving then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s attempt to keep private politically sensitive records from his energy policy task force that had recommended opening more federal lands to oil and gas drilling.” The documents reveal that “the justices had tentatively voted against Cheney’s appeal ... and it was Scalia who persuaded them to take up the case.” Even without this context, “[s]everal big newspapers” called on Scalia to recuse himself from the case because of his friendship with Cheney. Scalia refused, explaining that he did not believe his “impartiality can reasonably be questioned.” CNN noted that “reactions to Scalia’s decision would likely have intensified if the public had been aware of the difference Scalia made to hear Cheney’s appeal.”
Split appeals court panel protects some transgender people already in military
Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, Politico
On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s policy to remove transgender members of the military was fueled by unconstitutional animus and ‘the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group,’” according to Politico. However, the three-judge panel “divided over how broadly to apply its ruling, opting to protect only the specific plaintiffs in the case. In a 2-1 ruling authored by Judge Robert Wilkins, the panel made clear it was seeking to avoid running afoul of the Supreme Court’s concerns about nationwide injunctions.” “In a separate challenge to the same policy last year, the Supreme Court lifted an order from a federal judge in Washington state that blocked the military from enforcing the ban.” The two judges who joined Monday’s decision “noted that the Supreme Court’s silence about its basis for that decision left open whether the justices would uphold their narrower ruling.”
Ex-Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell sounds alarm over political interference
Joseph Gedeon, The Guardian
As he accepted the 2026 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in Boston on Sunday, Jerome Powell, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, “warned that a single act of political interference in monetary policy could permanently destroy public trust in the central bank” and said that the Fed is “in the midst of a ‘stress test,’” according to The Guardian. “He spoke as the supreme court weighs a highly anticipated decision on the fate of Fed governor Lisa Cook, whom Trump attempted to fire last August. Powell did not mention Trump, or Cook, by name.”
Democrats Promise to Wreck the Supreme Court
Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal (paywalled)
In a Sunday editorial, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board criticized top Democrats who have recently called for Supreme Court reform, contending that potential changes such as expanding the number of justices or “deny[ing] the Justices the power to choose which cases they hear” would destabilize the law and “blow up” the court. According to the board, “Democrats are free to dislike the Court’s decision,” but they should pursue legislative responses, not “destabilizing power grabs.” “If Democrats abhor gerrymandering,” for example, “they can argue for a bill to limit how, or how often, states draw House maps.”
Florida v. California
Steve Vladeck, One First
In a post for his Substack, Steve Vladeck explored the court’s “refusal to exercise ‘original’ jurisdiction” in Florida v. California, a case that “arose out of accusations Florida leveled against California and Washington of violating federal safety and immigration laws by issuing CDLs [commercial driver licenses] to individuals who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents and who allegedly lack English proficiency.” Specifically, Vladeck discussed the debate over whether “the Supreme Court can exercise the same discretion to decline to hear original jurisdiction cases that it exercises over (almost all of) its appellate docket,” explaining why he thinks “such discretion is a good thing.”
On Site
Court News
Justices send case of death-row inmate back to lower courts, grant new First Step Act case
The court on Monday added one new case to its argument docket for the 2026-27 term, granting another case involving the First Step Act, a 2018 criminal justice law intended to improve federal prison conditions and reduce long federal prison sentences. In an unsigned opinion, the justices also sent the case of a Florida death-row inmate back to the lower courts for another look. The announcements came as part of a list of orders from the justices’ May 28 conference.
Court News
Supreme Court urged to uphold lower court decision striking Alabama congressional map as racially discriminatory
The plaintiffs challenging an Alabama congressional map urged the justices on Monday afternoon to leave in place a ruling by a panel of federal judges that bars Alabama from using the map on the ground that it is racially discriminatory. One set of plaintiffs told the justices that the lower court “made findings on a full record that remains the definitive account of Alabama’s racial geography, racialized politics, and racially discriminatory policymaking.”
From the SCOTUSblog Team
The most important cases yet to be decided
By the end of this month – or the beginning of July, at the latest – the Supreme Court is expected to issue the final 26 opinions in cases that were argued during the 2025-26 term. Amy summarized the most closely watched disputes that are still awaiting a ruling.
Opinion Analysis
Court rejects broad interpretation of compassionate release statute
A federal defendant may obtain compassionate release if a district court finds, among other things, that “extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction” to his or her sentence. In two rulings last week, the court declined to apply that statute broadly.
Podcasts
Divided Argument
Smooth Stone in the River
Will Baude and Dan Epps talk about the court’s latest summary reversal on the “party presentation principle”; Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s vindication of his law journal student note in Pitchford v. Cain; Rutherford and Fernandez, two related cases about the intersection of compassionate release and habeas; and the DIG in Hamm v. Smith, a case about capital punishment and intellectual disability.
A Closer Look
Oral Argument at the Supreme Court
During his appearance at the 3rd Circuit Judicial Conference last month, Chief Justice John Roberts remarked on the court’s post-COVID-19 pandemic oral argument format, saying that the court’s oral arguments have gotten “a little too long” and are “maybe not as focused as usual.” He added that the justices may reconsider the format this summer.
The chief is not alone in that view. Justice Samuel Alito, speaking at the 5th Circuit Judicial Conference the same week, lamented that under the current format arguments drag on well beyond what is useful to the decision-making process, with extended commentary from the bench crowding out “real questions.”
Per the Supreme Court’s Guide for Counsel (which Kelsey perused for her piece on making jokes or cursing before the justices): “Unless the Court directs otherwise, argument will be scheduled to last one hour, with 30 minutes allowed for each side.” In practice, however, a typical oral argument runs (sometimes well) over the allotted hour.
Before COVID-19, argument followed a “free-for-all” structure in which, after a brief opening interval, any justice could interject, and at any moment. When the pandemic forced arguments to become remote in spring 2020, Roberts introduced a more orderly method, calling on each justice in turn by seniority. The change produced a few notable side effects, one being that Justice Clarence Thomas (who had gone years without posing a question) became a more consistent questioner at oral argument.
When the justices returned to the courtroom in fall 2021, they integrated the turn-taking with the traditional “free-for-all.” Under the current rules, each lawyer has two minutes of uninterrupted time for their opening argument, after which any justice can weigh in freely during the remainder of that lawyer’s allotted time. Once that time expires, the justices enter a “seriatim” round, where each justice has the opportunity to question the attorney individually, beginning with the chief justice and continuing down in order of seniority.
That addition is a primary driver of the longer argument times: data compiled by legal scholar and SCOTUSblog contributor Adam Feldman shows roughly a 40% increase in average argument length between 2019 and 2022, and although there has been a slight pullback since, arguments on average are still longer than they were before the pandemic. (Amy, who attended nearly every argument this term, noted that reporters now budget for roughly twice the scheduled argument time, “especially if there are more than two lawyers arguing.”)
The longer arguments have also reshaped who does the talking. In some of this term’s biggest cases, the justices accounted for almost or more than half of all words spoken. In Barrett v. United States, a dispute around double jeopardy, Feldman’s data showed the justices even collectively outtalked the lawyers, with the bench controlling 53.2% of the total words exchanged. Per Amy, the lawyers themselves generally tend to welcome the extended format, which affords them more opportunities to engage with each individual justice. But, as noted at this closer look’s beginning, not all of the justices share that enthusiasm.
Whether the court will actually revise the format is an open question – they could, for instance, trim down the individual questioning round, which is understood to last around five minutes per justice (although nothing in the court’s official rules fixes that number). Until they do so, however, our advice for those of you who plan to attend a sitting next term is to still budget for a rather lengthy argument session – especially in major cases.
SCOTUS Quote
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “So I'm sure – you're – you're saying that the State of Texas can take water directly from the main stem?”
MS. BLATT: “It can and does.”
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “That's my point, yeah.”
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: “Anywhere close to of the 25 percent they claim entitlement to?”
MS. BLATT: “Well, who knows?”
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: “I was hoping you did.”